Abstract
This chapter investigates 19th- and 20th-century Russian artistic and literary representations of mushrooming as a signal, stimulus, and starting point for digressions. The motif of mushrooms and mushroom hunt takes up a marginal, yet significant place in Russian cultural production. The seemingly simple, pagan, survival-oriented, and goal-directed task of picking mushrooms stimulates textual mushrooming of the protagonists' task-unrelated thoughts. The non-linear, peripatetic gathering provides an occasion for undisturbed walk, talk, eccentric behavior, and mind-wandering, and opens a communicative space that is both inside and outside social norms and political regulation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Digressions and the Human Imagination : Tracing the Indirectness of Cultural Creativity |
| Editors | Morten Nielsen |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Publisher | Taylor and Francis Group |
| Publication date | 30 Sept 2024 |
| Pages | 9-30 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9781032519920 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781040033456 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Sept 2024 |